Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Supreme Court to Make MAJOR RULING on Trump SUBPOENA

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Elon Musk and X have just asked the Supreme Court to allow them to violate a court ordered non disclosure agreement to warn Trump when search warrants and subpoenas try to obtain his X account information. Michael Popok breaks down whether this Supreme Court will bail out Trump again and make new “executive privilege” law again. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://RocketMoney.com/legalaf Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/legalaf Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Michael Popak, Legal AF. Elon Musk and X is trying to go to the United States Supreme Court on a writ of certiorari asking them to take up an appeal for the next term about whether they had a first amendment right to inform Donald Trump that the special counsel was going after Donald Trump's Twitter account, all of his DMs, all of the activity around the Twitter account without informing Donald Trump that that search warrant

or that subpoena was being complied with. Why? Because the judge at the time, Beryl Howell, the chief judge then of the DC Circuit Court made a determination just as she would or any magistrate judge would, that it would is more likely than not, or there's probable cause to believe, that Donald Trump would try to interfere with the execution of that subpoena or search warrant. And we know he did that in Mar-a-Lago, if not other places, that he would try to delete or destroy evidence and even maybe be a flight risk. And based on that, the judge said there is a

non-disclosure order in place. She instructed X, which was the target or the recipient of the search warrant or the subpoena, not to inform Donald Trump and to turn over these reams of data. Now, that wasn't the, he operated, Donald Trump operated that account while he was president. So of course he would have had some sort of assertion, right or wrong, of executive privilege. That issue, a very testy Judge Boesberg shot down the lawyers for Musk, particularly Seth Waxman. And, and we did this reporting about a year ago in which she said, I believe, you know, is your client Musk trying to curry favor with Donald Trump?

Is that why he's arguing about the non-disclosure agreement? They said, no, no, judge, this is the First Amendment rights of the social media platforms. We should be able to tell our users that they are the subject of a search warrant or subpoena. And the judge says, not when I've made a determination that it's subject to a nondisclosure agreement. And then after she did that, she found that they were almost in contempt, ex, Musk, for not complying appropriately

with the requirement to turn over the data. They were slow footing it, right? Because they didn't want to comply. And that's when she said, is your client Musk trying to curry favor with the president, the former president, who he wants to re-platform? This whole issue about the legitimacy, the constitutionality of a non-disclosure agreement

that's applied to a social media company is at the heart of this new writ of certiorari. Now, it has to be granted. There has to be four votes to take it up and five votes to ultimately side with Musk. It starts first stop on the train because this is filed in DC with the Supreme Court is going to be with the Chief Justice Roberts, but he'll throw it to the entire panel. Now, this is not gonna be a this year issue.

The term of the United States Supreme Court is effectively over. Starts the first Monday in October, and it ends in sometime in June. It's sort of like a soccer game. You don't know quite when it ends until there's a buzzer and a lot of screaming and crying.

Same thing with the United States Supreme Court. It's gonna end soon with the issuance of the last batch of Supreme Court decisions that are coming out. We're waiting for them on gun control. We're waiting for them on abortion. We're waiting for them on immunity for Donald Trump. We're waiting for them on obstruction of an official proceeding, or whether that's going to survive an appeal as used against the Jan 6th defendants. We're waiting for all of those. It'll come out in the next week or

two. This will be for the next term. And only after there's a caucus, a conference of the justices, they sort of do a little straw poll about whether they find the appeal interesting, and they want to take it up How much do you think you're paying in subscriptions every month? The answer is probably more than you think over 74% of people have subscriptions. They've forgotten about myself included. It drives me crazy I definitely do this and One time I forgot that I had subscribed to a tablet that I no longer even use. And it was literally

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Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. That's rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. That's rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. Now, one of the things that may motivate the MAGA right wing on the United States Supreme Court to take up this appeal is that it went en banc, meaning the entire DC Court of Appeals eventually heard this.

And while it was the majority upheld most of the panel, most of the en banc panel upheld Beryl Howell, the chief judge of the Times ruling in which she almost found X in contempt, forced them to turn over all the documents and data which were then used, mined by the Department of Justice, the FBI and used against Donald Trump in the DC election interference case, the one that's on hold in front of Judge Chutkin, as we await for the immunity decision from the United States Supreme Court. There were four members of the panel, the en banc panel, mainly the right wing and the conservatives, including one of them that was part of a recent gag order decision by the DC Court of Appeals. Four of them thought in a scathing terms that Beryl Howell was wrong and that she had not properly balanced the potential application

of executive privilege when she was making the unique decision about Donald Trump, social media, and the use of a nondisclosure order. So they thought that the trial judge gave short shrift to that, and they would have reversed. That was four. They were outnumbered about eight or nine to four. But that, you will see, will be the thread that will be pulled on this giant sweater by the MAGA right wing, and they'll likely get their four, if not five votes on this issue. And they'll have to decide, as we've seen in them do in other oral arguments and decisions, the application of this overlay of the executive privilege of the president on top of the non-disclosure agreement and the First Amendment rights of social media,

and kind of analyze it all through that lens to decide whether as in our constitutional republic, this will be the ruling of the Supreme Court eventually, whether a non-disclosure agreement can be applied to stop the disclosure to a former or current president if there is executive privilege implications of the turnover of his material, their argument was they should have given him time as the former president to try to assert executive privilege, have it litigated before all the documents went over to the government, to the Department of Justice. That's the fundamental argument. We'll follow right here on the Midas Touch Network just like we always do. We think it's a slow, slow new summer for the

summary for the Supreme Court. As soon as they make this last gasp of rulings, it won't be, because we'll be getting these petitions that as soon as they get back in the first Monday in October, they will then look at this pile and decide whether this particular writ will be pulled up. But no, this will not be decided on an emergency basis or otherwise during the summer. Supreme Court frankly doesn't meet in the summer. We'll have to pick it up again in October and we'll follow it right here. Follow us on the Minus Touch Network. We're called Legal AF. It's a podcast. We curate the top stories of the intersection of law and politics. We bring it to you right here, just like this one, except we do it with co-anchors. Wednesday, I do it with Karen

Friedman at Nifilo. Saturday, I do it with my my co-founder Ben Mycelis. And then on hot takes like this one to keep you at the moment, at the market, up to speed in all things legal and political. So until my next hot take, which is like this one, and if you like this, leave me a comment and a thumbs up. It keeps me on the air. It's not ego, it's algorithm. And until my next Legal AF, again, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and free subscribe to the Midas Touch Network, by the way, help them get to 3 million free, yes, free subscribers before the election. We're building this network with our bare hands.

With your help, I assure you. And then we have another way to support Legal AF and the contributors there. It's with patreon.com slash Legal AF for exclusive content, teachable moments, PO-POK Talks. It's a Ted Talk meets a law school class and it has a baby. That is patreon.com slash Legal AF. So until all of that, this is Michael PO-POK reporting.

Heary, heary, Legal AF Law Breakdown is now in session. Go beyond the headlines and get a deep dive This is Michael Bopak reporting.